Romania in Europe

A short history of Romanians from ancient times to the present day. The summary reviews the sequence of events, from ancient times, which led to the formation of the modern, unitary national state, Romania. The red thread of this presentation being the ideal of unification of the territories inhabited by Romanians.

Ancients

Ancient traces of material culture, discovered in various archeological sites on the current territory of Romania, attest to the fact that the space inside and outside the Carpathian arch has been inhabited since time immemorial. Although we do not know much about the ancient inhabitants of these lands, relevant information about various Neolithic cultures was revealed by researching the remains scattered throughout Romania today. What can be said about the ancient inhabitants of these lands is that, in addition to their outdoor settlements, they also lived in caves. A series of discoveries from the caves of Cioclovina, Ohaba Ponor from Transylvania, Băile Herculane from Banat and Boroșteni in Oltenia, confirm this theory.

Among the first traces of inhabiting caves appear in the Middle Paleolithic, in what is called the Musterian culture, found in all regions of the country, but especially in the caves of the Southern Carpathians: Muierilor, Cioara, Cioclovina, Ohaba Ponor. A series of carved stone tools discovered in these places have been dated to be 50 millennia old. Remains of bones, two phalanges of one hand and one of the foot, belonging to Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, were also discovered in the cave of Ohaba Ponor. A skull of a 30-40 year old woman was also discovered in Cioclovina, and in the cave of Baia de Fier, a skull of a 40-50 year old woman, of the Homo Sapiens type.

The transition to the Neolithic and the appearance of pottery left traces in the Carpatho-Danubian space. The oldest burnt clay vessels from the Romanian space date from around 6000 BC. The most common and widespread Neolithic cultures are Cris-Starcevo (VI-V millennia BC), Hamangia (IV-II millennia BC), Cucuteni-Ariușd (IV-III millennia BC), Boiaan-Gumelnița, Turdaș-Petrești. The most famous pieces belonging to these cultures are the clay statuettes The Thinker and his pair. The statuettes appreciated for their artistic expressiveness were discovered near Cernavoda, in the cemetery from Sofia Hill.

The analysis of the archaeological inventory belonging to these cultures concluded that the population had as occupation the culture of the land and the raising of cattle, and their livelihood led them to villages, protected by ditches, in surface dwellings.

In the III-II millennia BC. Hr, in the Carpatho-Danubian area, there is a migration of Indo-European populations of nomadic shepherds. An ethno-cultural synthesis took place between the local Neolithic population and the Indo-European nomads. The latter were culturally assimilated, but managed to impose their spoken language.

The widespread use of bronze facilitated the development of weapons and thus a better military organization. Warriors become more important, and societies begin to build defense and fortification constructions. These changes in social organization have led to the formation, over time, of ethnic blocs in the Southeast European area (Greeks, Illyrians, Thracians).

The Iron Age consolidated the appearance of ethno-linguistic families, in the Carpatho-Balkan area consolidating the Thracian block, with its northern branch, the Geto-Dacians.

Concrete archaeological data, as well as a multitude of historical sources attest to the presence of the Geto-Dacians, from the Thracian family, in the space between the Carpathians and the Balkans, starting with the 6th century BC. Gradually, the Geto-Dacians managed to impose themselves economically, politically and culturally in the entire area of ​​Southeast Europe. The earliest mention of the Getae comes from Herodotus. He considered them to be the bravest and fairest of the Thracians. From the same author we know that the Getae believed themselves immortal and that after death they go to Zamolxis, their supreme divinity.

Between the 1st century BC. and II AD, in the space delimited by the Danube, the Black Sea and the Carpathian Mountains there was the Dacian state. The peak of development was reached in the time of King Burebista (82-44 BC), who became the leader of a nation exhausted by an endless series of tribal battles, according to Strabo. We also know from the Greek historian that Burebista imposed himself through an authoritarian rule and brought the people to obey the commandments. With the help of his adviser, the high priest Deceneu, he introduced a series of reforms that led to the consolidation of the kingdom. Among them, the historian Strabo mentions the cutting of vines and the prohibition of alcohol.

Through political and military campaigns, the Dacian king succeeded around 70 BC. to pass the territories of the Daco-Getae under a single authority. Burebista's kingdom encompassed the entire Thracian-Geto-Dacian world and stretched from the Haemus Mountains (Balkans) to the Forest Carpathians, from the Tyras (Dniester) to the Tissus. The Dacian king had a large army, according to Strabo, which numbered over 200,000 soldiers. Many contemporary historians consider this figure exaggerated.

Burebista, considered by historians as the first and greatest other king of Thrace, established the capital of the Geto-Dacian Kingdom in the Orastie Mountains, at Sarmisegetuza. Here, in the Transylvanian mountains, a series of fortifications were built (Costești, Blidaru, Piatra Roșie), which were later consolidated by the leaders who succeeded Burebista.

The Geto-Dacian society consisted of a tribal aristocracy (tarabostes in Dacian, piled in Latin) and a class of ordinary people (free in Latin comati or capillati). The latter, as they are called in Latin, were plump, while the former walked with their heads covered with a hat.

Rome's imprint

Following the military campaigns, the kingdom of Burebista experienced a significant expansion, until near the borders of the Roman Empire. The Dacian king, meanwhile even feared by the Romans (according to Strabo), tried to enter the internal dispute of the Roman Empire and taking advantage of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, he sided with the latter. After the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalos, Caesar planned a massive campaign against the Dacians, but the assassination of the Roman general in 44 BC postponed the confrontation with Dacia for more than 100 years. Burebista shares the fate of Caesar, at about the same time (35 BC), being the victim of an internal conspiracy, and the Kingdom founded by him loses power and influence, and the borders of the state if they know a significant restriction.

A new period of flowering of Dacia takes place under the rule of Decebalus (87-106 AD). Although smaller than the kingdom of Burebista, under the leadership of the new leader, Dacia knows an important economic and military development. There are several confrontations between the armies of the Roman Empire and those of Decebalus, the best known being that of Tapae. But the fiercest confrontations between the two camps took place between 101-102 and 105-106 AD. The Roman Empire managed to defeat the Geto-Dacians, and after the conquest, the Dacian state became a Roman province. Two commemorative monuments bear witness to the Daco-Roman battles: Trajan's Column from Rome and Trajan's Tropaeum from Adamclisi.

The period in which Dacia was a Roman province (106-271 AD) brought a series of significant socio-economic, political and cultural changes and a strong process of Romanization took place, both in the occupied and in the remaining territory. free.

Historians have agreed that this is the moment when a new people begins to crystallize, the Romanian people, the result of the fusion between the Dacian natives, the first basic ethnic element and the Roman population, formed by the colonists of the empire, and the appearance of the language spoken by this new people. , Romanian language.

As a result of the various crises in the empire and the constant pressure of the barbarian populations on the edge of the empire, Emperor Aurelian decided in 271 to withdraw south of the Danube, with armies and part of the administrative apparatus and a certain urban population. Part of the Roman colonists and the Romanized population remain in place and maintain economic, social and cultural ties with the empire across the Danube. There is archaeological evidence throughout Romania that confirms this thesis, mainly graves and monetary discoveries.

The wave of barbarian populations brought massive changes in the former Roman province. Some of the Roman cities were destroyed, as a result of which there was a withdrawal of the population from urban to rural areas, as well as a local administration completely out of the administration of the Empire.

The Romanization process continued in the second century, Christianity making a significant contribution, spread from the city centers south of the Danube.

A series of Roman and later Byzantine emperors, such as Constantine the Great, Valens, Justinian, tried over the years to restore control over the province. Although the population of the northern Danube province lived outside the control of an empire, it kept in mind the belonging to the Roman Empire, and later to its heritage, the Roman-Byzantine Empire, transformed into Byzantine.